ood."

Rodney stated also in his home letters that the action of his
subordinates in the last affairs had been efficient; but he gave
them little credit for it. "As I had given public notice to all my
captains, etc., that I expected implicit obedience to every signal
made, under the certain penalty of being instantly superseded, it
had an admirable effect; as they were all convinced, after their
late gross behaviour, that they had nothing to expect at my hands but
instant punishment to those who neglected their duty. My eye on them
had more dread than the enemy's fire, and they knew it would be fatal.
No regard was paid to rank: admirals as well as captains, if out of
their station, were instantly reprimanded by signals, or messages sent
by frigates; and, in spite of themselves, I taught them to be, what
they had never been before,--_officers_." Rodney told his officers
also that he would shift his flag into a frigate, if necessary, to
watch them better. It is by no means obligatory to accept these gross
aspersions as significant of anything worse than the suspiciousness
prevalent throughout the Navy, traceable ultimately to a corrupt
administration of the Admiralty. The latter, like the government of
1756, was open to censure through political maladministration; every
one feared that blame would be shifted on to him, as it had been on
to Byng,--who deserved it; and not only so, but that blame would
be pushed on to ruin, as in his case. The Navy was honeycombed with
distrust, falling little short of panic. In this state of apprehension
and doubt, the tradition of the line of battle, resting upon men who
did not stop to study facts or analyse impressions, and who had seen
officers censured, cashiered, and shot, for errors of judgment or of
action, naturally produced hesitations and misunderstandings. An order
of battle is a good thing, necessary to insure mutual support and to
develop a plan. The error of the century, not then exploded, was to
observe it in the letter rather than in the spirit; to regard the
order as an end rather than a means; and to seek in it not merely
efficiency, which admits broad construction in positions, but
preciseness, which is as narrowing as a brace of handcuffs. Rodney
himself, Tory though he was, found fault with the administration. With
all his severity and hauteur, he did not lose sight of justice, as is
shown by a sentence in his letter to Carkett. "Could I have imagined
your conduct a